April '12

The last twelve months have witnessed a variety of disparate events; however, perhaps one of the most remarkable was the appearance on global television of an American President to announce that a US operation had killed Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan. Remarkable, not so much for the news itself, but for the brazen admission of the authority given for a mission of questionable legality in another’s sovereign territory.

March '12

Why the image came into my head, I cannot be so sure. It was of an old man, his noble face, stood proud, contrasted against the black night sky. A sea of candle-like flashlights stretched beyond and there were many tears. It was Lillehammer 1994 and the face belonged to that of Juan Antonio Samaranch at the closing of the winter Olympics - an emotional scene as people’s thoughts turned to the citizens of Sarajevo. A city where, just ten years before, a beautiful Olympics had taken place had now been turned into a place of war and genocide. The Zetra figure-skating centre where Torvill and Dean had performed their beautifully romantic Bolero had now been reduced to rubble by shelling and mortar-fire. Sarajevo, where people from all nations had gathered together to bring joy and entertainment, was now being ripped apart as people died, Innocents killed by snipers, as they searched for bread or went to fetch water, victims of a policy of ‘ethnic cleansing’, genocide, declared by Serbians against Bosnian Muslims, their Yugoslavian brothers, their human brothers - all part of a wider brutal conflict in the former Yugoslavia as that nation exploded with Serbs, Bosnians, and Croats taking up arms against each other.